


Whatever the Hell We Want

by BeaRyan



Series: Tropes for The 100 [4]
Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Angsty Bellamy, Class and social issues, F/M, Interrupted Bath, Not as hot and smutty as it sounds like it might be, Tropes, sponge bath
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-17
Updated: 2014-12-17
Packaged: 2018-03-01 22:01:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,006
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2789258
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BeaRyan/pseuds/BeaRyan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Even from a hundred yards away Raven had recognized the look on Bellamy. As soon as he'd come through the gate with Octavia, Monroe, and the girl from Factory Station they’d taken his gun, the thing he needed to defend the people who counted on him.  They’d come for the people he’d brought in and he'd had to turn them over, too.  He retreated to his tent.  Raven followed.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Whatever the Hell We Want

There’s no way to knock on a tent. It was one of those strange truths about life on earth that space hadn't prepared them for. Unfiltered air smelled and sometimes it felt heavy and wet in a way it never had on the Ark. Food cooked in the fire tasted different from food that was heated in a pan or boiled, all of which was different from the way they’d eaten on the Ark. The ground you walked on was uneven and changed without warning. There was so much here that no one had warned them about. Everything was different except for the things the Ark had brought down with it. The rules and social structures The 100 had discarded as soon as they’d landed had come crashing down along with the rest of the Ark. 

The combined weight of it all sometimes felt crushing, at least if you were on the bottom of the pile. Even from a hundred yards away Raven had recognized the look on Bellamy. As soon as he'd come through the gate with Octavia, Monroe, and the girl from Factory Station they’d taken his gun, the thing he needed to defend the people who counted on him. They’d come for the people he’d brought in and he'd had to turn them over, too. He was supposed to trust that the same good citizens who’d sent them to die suddenly cared about his people. It was too much to ask, and after the hugs, when Raven had suggested that he go clean up, he’d nodded and retreated to his tent. 

Now Raven hesitated, but she was the only one here now who knew what he was going through, and he had three hours to get past it and look like the leader was before the council came out of their meeting. Clarke didn't get it. She was from Alpha Station and the Chancellor’s daughter. She had a voice in Camp Jaha, and if not exactly faith in the council at least not a deep mistrust of them either. She wasn't on the bottom with a thousand grains of sand piling on. Octavia seemed to love it all, even the parts she hated, and no one could blame her. She'd been from nothing to everything and then even more in a year. Her world just kept getting wider and she'd learned how to make adjustments. 

For Raven and Bellamy though, trapped in camp with the worst of the old ways and the pressures of the new, it was all just too much sometimes. He didn't have to be alone for this. This was something she could do, and if not fix it at least help him figure out how to work around it. She grabbed the zipper on his tent door, pulled it up enough to slip through and zipped it shut behind her. 

"You need something?" he asked. He was in only his underwear with a damp cloth in his hand, crouched near a basin. He'd already washed his face and one arm, and the contrast between the clean side and dirty one was startling. You never got dirty on the Ark, soil was too precious, and he’d already taken on layers of smears and textures when she met him on Earth. They varied, but you were never as clean on Earth as you’d been in space. She’d forgotten that the freckles on his face didn't cover the rest of his body. Funny the things you could forget in a month. 

"They set up showers near the water pumps," she offered. "They're cold but quick." 

"Great," he said, his disgust barely masquerading as sarcasm. "Let me grab my ration card and I'll go get my assigned amount of clean." 

"You're getting your floor wet." 

"It's my floor," he snapped. 

"You could let me help you." 

"I'm not Finn." 

"I know. Finn wouldn't give me shit.” She held out her hand. “He'd be clean by now, too. Give me the cloth." 

He hesitated, rag dripping over the bowl as he stared at her. 

Quietly, she said, “I’m not going to take more than you want to give. Just let me help.” 

He recognized her need, the desire to be useful and active, to take action, any action, and surrendered. Raven could be trusted - she'd proven it more than once - and he could let her do something even if it did mean he could only sit. 

She took the cloth and sat down in front of him with the bowl between them. She'd rather crouch, moving around him as needed, but the brace was only so good. It was sit or fall, so she sat. His feet, pale and wrinkled from the time spent in damp boots, were closer to her than anything else, and so she started with the left one, first dipping the cloth, then wringing it out and running it firmly over his ankle, circling it and massaging as she went before sliding down over his heel and pressing into his arch. He shivered then smiled, and let himself relax, laying back on the floor cloth while she worked. For the first time in too long, being the object of someone else’s action felt good. 

She dipped the cloth again and squeezed it out, working over the top of his foot, noting a few stray freckles as she went and then moving on to his toes. The line between cleaning and massage disappeared entirely and he moaned, a deep and satisfied sound. 

He said, "That is the best thing I have ever felt in my life." 

"I'll try to take that as a compliment." 

He sat up a little, muscles tight and ready to go on the defensive. "Why wouldn't it be?" 

She smirked a little and tilted her head with a “how quickly they forget” look, and he nodded, admitting to the memory. "Your body was there. Your head wasn't." 

"My head was there," she protested.

"Making sure Finn wasn't ahead. Didn't have a whole hell of a lot to do with me."

"You complain a lot for someone getting a foot rub." 

"I should just shut up," he said, and he stretched back out, letting her hands work, letting her take care of him. The ways Clarke took care of people, her doctoring and orders disguised as logical suggestions, were obvious. Raven’s caretaking was usually both more and less subtle, bullets and fire. He was in a special circle now, one of the few people who got her direct attention, and that status was a lot more precious than being the second man in her bed. 

Her hands made their way up his legs, washing and massaging his calves and then past his knees, and she worked faster, more efficiently. The quick wipe of the cloth near the edge of his underwear let him know there's a limit to this bath. It was probably for the best, although he would if she offered. Her hands worked their way up his chest and over his arm, kneading the kinks out of muscles that half-carried two injured women a full day’s walk back only to have them snatched away as soon as they were back in the “safety” of the camp. Yes, he really, really would let Raven block out the world for a while if she was up for it. 

His stomach rumbled and he put an embarrassed hand over it, pressing in, shoving away the hunger like he'd always done. 

"I can get you something to eat," Raven said. She didn't wait for acceptance she just quickly finished with his hand and moved towards the door. 

"I can get it myself."

"No, you can't. We're on rations. Next meal call is in two hours." 

At the dropship they’d come a long way from 'whatever the hell we want' but they'd never adopted the rationing system of the Ark. Hardworking people needed to eat if they were going to keep working. That was part of the reason everyone had been so angry when Murphy pissed on Connor for wanting a water break. On Earth they’d granted themselves the dignity of eating when they were hungry and drinking when they were thirsty. Of course the Council had taken that away. 

"How can you get around it?" The fundamental question of life on the Ark and now in Camp Jaha. 

"I'm a mechanic. I can fix things no matter where they are on the Council's priority list." 

"I'm a janitor," Bellamy said, his throat closing around the words. Here he was no one. Nothing. 

"You're the leader of The Hundred. You scare them." 

"Clarke's their leader."

"Princess scares them, too." She met his eyes and gave his arm a gentle squeeze. "No one's getting back in line, Bellamy."

"Right. That's why you have to start promising favors just so I can eat." 

"First we get our friends back, then we overthrow the government. Priorities." 

She was almost out the door when Bellamy called after her, "Octavia?" 

"Teaching Ark girls to braid their hair in ways that worry their parents. Clarke's busy, too. The Council meeting doesn't even start for two hours and you have a meeting with Abby after it. There's nothing for you to do now but rest and eat."

"Wake me up when you get back," he ordered. 

"Yeah," she said in a tone that meant she was going to drop off the food and go. 

"Raven," he warned. 

"Fine." 

 

XXX

In exchange for a sack full of portable rations, she tweaked the settings on the dehydrator in the supply station. Why the hell getting them working at top speed wasn't on the Council’s priority list was a mystery. If they lived, they'd need to eat through the winter. Once she had the rations in hand, she checked in with Clarke and Octavia - each was busy building her network in her own way - and headed back to Bellamy's tent. 

Quietly she snuck in, careful not to wake him as she dropped off the bag. A few dark drops around the waistband of his underwear and the missing basin showed that he'd finished his bath, and she pulled the one thin blanket up over him before working her way around him and to the door of the tent. 

Bellamy’s arm grabbed her around the waist, jerking her back and slamming her roughly to the floor tent, but he caught her head with his free hand, landing hard on his elbow in the process but saving her from any real injury. He had her pinned, one of his thighs between hers and the other straddling her, and his chest loomed over hers, inches away, strong and broad. His voice was coldly authoritative as he said, "I told you to wake me up." 

She didn't answer. The storm was raging in him didn't have a hell of a lot to do with her. You waited out a storm. The clouds broke and the words came. 

He said, "We’ll never survive. We’re still own on own but it’s worse. The few of us that are left… They listened so well when I told them what they wanted to hear, but now... Now it really is whatever the hell they want. Finn wasn't going to stay and Sterling just went right over the edge without even checking the knots, much less with me."

"Bell," she said. She didn't usually call him Bell, no one but Octavia did, but then he didn’t usually show any weakness. 

He looked down at the lack of space between their bodies and pulled away, muttering apologies as he went. 

She slid a hand around his neck and drew him in for a kiss. He was hesitant at first, but when she began to lean back, pulling him along with her, he followed her down.

"Raven," he said, breathing out the word like a question and a prayer all at once. 

"You need a break. I'm offering one. Take it or leave it. Whatever the hell you want." 

He took it.

**Author's Note:**

> Comments welcome.


End file.
